Apple Inc’s top-tier iPhone 5S has proved that adding more cores to a smartphone does not necessarily mean it will have better performance, according to a survey conducted by British tech magazine Which.
In a survey published on Wednesday, the magazine tested seven flagship phones and found that the iPhone 5S broke all records in its processor benchmarking tests, proving to be almost twice as fast as the older iPhone 5 and about 50 percent faster than its main rival, Samsung Electronics Co’s Galaxy S4.
“The results from our benchmarking tests make the iPhone 5S the fastest phone we have ever tested,” said Jon Barrow, a technology researcher at Which.
“It may only have a dual-core 1.3GHz processor, rather than the quad core processors found on many rival smartphones, but as our tests show, more cores do not necessarily mean better performance,” Barrow wrote in the survey.
The British magazine used the industry-recognized Geekbench software to assess the speed of smartphones. The software is designed to replicate real-world tasks and calculates the performances of single core and multi-core devices.
In terms of multi-core performance, the iPhone 5S had the highest raw score of 2561, followed by the LG G2 with 2355, the Samsung Galaxy S4 with 1939 and the HTC One with 1805.
The remaining models on the list were less expensive phones, including the iPhone 5C in fifth with a score of 1281, the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini in sixth with 1135 and the HTC One mini in seventh with 880.
Barrow said that users will find most of the phones tested fantastically smooth in everyday use, but users of the iPhone 5S will find it is a little snappier when swiping through menus and opening apps.
“The iPhone 5S is, however, built for the future. The power of the processor really comes into its own when you’re running power-hungry apps, editing videos, or playing advanced games,” the researcher said.
“If you need a super-fast processor, then the iPhone 5S is certainly the phone for you. However, it’s incredible power isn’t necessary for everyone and the processors in the other phones featured here will usually be fast enough,” Barrow added.
Apple reported record-breaking sales of 9 million units of its top-of-the-line iPhone 5S and less costly, plastic-backed iPhone 5C models during the first weekend they went on sale late last month.
The US company said that demand for its iPhone 5S has exceeded initial supplies and many online orders are scheduled to be shipped in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, British bank Barclays PLC has estimated that only 5 million iPhone 5S units were shipped during the third quarter, but that the number should increase to 32 million in the October to December quarter as manufacturers continue to raise their capacity to meet demand.
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